WOOLMARK WIN­NERS

Man­ish Mal­ho­tra has cho­sen the next gen­er­a­tion of In­dian de­sign­ers.

The su­per­star In­dian de­signer was on the panel of judges that se­lected the win­ners of the Woolmark prize for In­dia and the Mid­dle East – In­dian la­bels An­tar-Agni (menswear) and Bodice (wom­enswear).

The re­gional fi­nal, which took place in Dubai on July 24, saw the two In­dian la­bels se­lected by Mal­ho­tra and ed­i­tors of both UAE and In­dian pub­li­ca­tions. Each of the de­sign­ers had to cre­ate one look that they feel rep­re­sents their work.

Ui­jawal Dubey of An­tar-Agni cre­ated a grey, one-toned, lay­ered look, tak­ing in­spi­ra­tion from his own cul­ture, with com­fort be­ing key to his de­sign. Bodice’s Ruchika Sachdeva took in­spi­ra­tion from the 18th cen­tury cos­tumes of In­dian Nautch girls, which she con­trasted with mod­ern tai­lor­ing, us­ing pan­els of colour to off-set the sport luxe de­sign.

‘The In­ter­na­tional Woolmark Prize is al­ways a great ex­pe­ri­ence,’ said Mal­ho­tra; ‘the judg­ing gets tougher ev­ery year as the qual­ity of work from de­sign­ers nom­i­nated keeps get­ting bet­ter. Bodice scored high on adapt­abil­ity, com­mer­cial vi­a­bil­ity and cre­ativ­ity of the look... and An­tar-Agni cre­ated some­thing true to his be­lief. We are keen to see how th­ese de­signs will be re­ceived in the global mar­ket,’ added Mal­ho­tra.

Each of the win­ners will be awarded around Dh200,000 to put to­wards de­vel­op­ing their fash­ion la­bel, and they will also com­pete in the In­ter­na­tional Woolmark prize fi­nal in Aus­tralia, which has a prize of around Dh580,000. Both win­ners will also re­ceive men­tor­ing sup­port from a global team of fash­ion ex­perts.